


Dedication

by zenstrike



Series: we’re walking lines in parallel [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, First Love, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, ONLY FOOLS RUSH IN..., Secret Relationship, and as always: self-indulgent romantic garbage, basically the s3 klance fic i’ve always wanted, or: canon-compliant until i punch canon in the face, s3 klance shenanigans, supportive boyfriends, zen says “meh” at canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 09:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17505920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: Keith sets him on fire.And he’s waiting, breathing quietly and shifting slightly and wavering like a fantasy in the corner of Lance’s eye. All Keith has said is Lance’s name, not whispered or shouted but spoken like a spell into the echoing brightness of the hangar and in Blue’s shadow: Lance. And that’s what Lance remembers: his name, on Keith’s breath and Keith’s lips and in the warmth of Keith’s skin—Yeah. Fire.





	Dedication

**Author's Note:**

> well
> 
> okay
> 
> look
> 
> uh
> 
> this takes me a long time to write so the chapters will come slow but anyway thank you for reading
> 
> big thank you to colleen and darcy who, once again, read this chapter when it was half-finished and helped me keep going. and huge thank you to happychat who have listened to me whine about this for...weeks.

    A week after they lose Shiro (and _lose_ seems the best word) Lance waits until it’s late and he peers around corners and he holds his breath and he hopes no one will catch him. He drags his fingers against the cool walls and he shivers. His shoes squeak against the floor when his attention drags, loud in the dark and the quiet. He strains his ears and pretends he can hear Hunk snoring. It should remind him of that first night, of dashing through the Garrison halls and of finding Pidge on the roof and the start of their grand adventure.

    Instead, he thinks about the way Pidge looks like she hasn’t slept in days (she probably hasn’t). Instead, he thinks about the stuttered conversations between Allura and Hunk, the aching way they try to slip back into their old roles even though Shiro is gone. Instead, he remembers the tense hunch of Keith’s shoulders as he pulls away from all of them, disappearing around corners and refusing to meet Lance’s eyes. Lance, feeling selfish and self-conscious, thinks Keith is avoiding him, maybe even running away from him.

    Fine—let him run.

    Lance leans his head back and feels his hair drag against the wall. He closes his eyes and huffs a long breath. He feels it fill his lungs. He concentrates on feeling his fingers and toes, like remembrance, and tries to still his brain into quiet. This was easier, a week ago. Now, Blue is quiet—present, but quiet, like she’s sleeping though Lance has never known her consciousness to sleep.

    He runs the rest of the way to the hangar. He’s desperate to see her, though he can’t figure out why. It’s an unsettled feeling under his skin, maybe anxiety. He wants to shrug it off. He trains, when Keith isn’t hogging the deck; he runs, when Keith is trying to beat the ever-loving crap out of the gladiator. He tries to sweat it out, whatever it is. Maybe it’s him. Maybe it’s Lance who’s put up a wall. Maybe it’s Lance who’s done—something—to make Blue pull away from him.

    He isn’t calm until he’s sitting in her cockpit and staring at the blank viewscreens.

    Even then, it doesn’t last.

    A week ago, Blue was a comfort as Lance was reeling, still remembering his back against a wall and the feel of Keith—

    He shakes his head.

    “Nope,” he says out loud and clears his throat. “No way. Not right now.”

    Maybe not ever.

    Maybe Lance should try beating the ever-loving crap out of the gladiator. Could he do it with his fists?

    He flinches. He rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes and groans.

    “I’m restless,” he decides out loud. “Things are just—weird right now. Right?”

    Blue is almost silent. She’s just a hum like an old TV.

    Lance’s hands drop to his lap and he leans back in the seat. It’s strange to be in her cockpit without his armour and, again, it’s like he should be remembering the first time she touched her thoughts to his, the first time he felt the lurch of her around them, with everyone’s voices wailing in his ears and his heart shrieking with joy.

    His fingers twitch. He hugs his knees to his chest and rests a cheek on them. He sighs.

    “What do we do?” he whispers into the dim, blue-accented light of his lion. His eyelids are heavy. His head is even heavier. He feels himself starting to sag in his seat and maybe there’s something about his armour that can make him feel larger, stronger, better.

    Blue doesn’t respond. But she doesn’t kick him out, either.

 

***

 

    Hours later he almost falls out of the chair, the vertigo startling him into sudden, frightening wakefulness. Lance flails for a moment, feeling hot and cold and like he’s vibrating. When he can he listens to his scattered heartbeat and tries to calm down. He tries to count: one, two; one, two; one, two. He gets distracted and his thoughts fly home, to things he’d wished he said or wished he could’ve said, to something silly Hunk said ages ago, to a soft feeling Blue left in his gut after a moment of terror.

    Blue is still quiet.

    He waits for his breathing to slow but it takes too long so he throws himself from his seat and he stumbles out of the cockpit with barely a farewell. He’s still cold all over but he also feels like he’s been sweating so his shirt sticks to his skin and his hair and face feel grimy and unkempt. His throat aches and he wonders if he’s been yelling.

    He goes back to his room and throws himself onto his bed and he waits for something to fall back into place.

    It’s hard to stay so still for so long.

 

***

 

    Nobody else is in the showers when he gets there so he takes his time. He washes his hair with the chalky Altean soap that makes his scalp sing. He closes his eyes and lets the spray hit his face until he sees spots like rain against his eyelids. He runs the water hot, and then hotter, until he feels like he’s cooking and then he jerks the tap to as cold as he can take. When he finally leaves he realizes that he’s alone in his own head for the first time in months. It’s lonely. It’s cold. There’s a chunk of his soul that’s vanished.

    Pidge is sitting cross-legged on one of the benches outside. Her hair is wild and her glasses are folded next to her. They stare at each other, and then Lance smiles and pulls his towel from his head.

    She’s slow to return the smile. “‘morning.”

    Lance drops onto the bench next to her and drums his fingers against it. “Sleep okay?”

    “Yup,” Pidge lies and Lance lets her. “Did you use up all the hot water?”

    “You’ll thank me in twenty years. Cold water’s great for the skin.”

    Pidge blinks. “It is?”

    Lance shrugs. “Maybe.”

    She laughs and tries to push him off the bench and that feels like a job well done. Lance leaves with a renewed spring to his step and, for a bit, he forgets that Shiro is missing and Blue is locking him out and that Keith kissed him in the hall a little over a week ago. He goes back to his room and tugs at his hair and wonders if it’s getting too long because it’s beginning to curl at his forehead, his ears. He wonders if he’d be okay with growing it out, letting his hair get wild and, yeah, a little bouncy because he’s not a cadet anymore.

    Lance is sure Keith never gave much thought to his hair, but Keith has also never seemed to give much thought to the tiny judgments people can make. Or, maybe he gives too much thought to them.

    Lance drags out the little box with the makeshift clippers he had found (it feels like a long time ago). He doesn’t think about helping Shiro with his hair, or the sheepish, slightly shy smile Shiro had given him when Lance had offered. He can’t help but think about the rare, comforting sound of Shiro’s laughter on the training deck, or the surety they all felt with Shiro as their literal head. He can’t help but wonder: what will happen now?

    He’s the last one to breakfast. Pidge is more energetic. Hunk makes Allura laugh, even if it’s short and a little too sweet. The noise of them all makes Lance sit a little straighter and his voice feel a little stronger.

    “Stop cutting your hair,” Hunk decides and gestures vaguely violently at Lance with an empty plate. “Let’s see it curl!”

    ”You couldn’t handle my fairytale ringlets,” Lance sniffs.

    Keith stands.

    He doesn’t say anything. He barely makes a sound. The whole room seems to still, and Lance realizes that they’re all waiting for Keith to snap.

    Lance wishes he would say something. Anything.

    Instead Keith looks at his hands. “Thanks for breakfast, Hunk,” he says. His fingers flex. He turns and he leaves and they all watch him go.

    “Someone needs to talk to him,” Allura says eventually.

    Nobody moves.

 

***

 

    Nobody says it but Lance knows: none of them want to talk about it.

    Maybe silent, angry, hitting-things-a-lot Keith is the only one really confronting what losing Shiro means. Maybe he feels it more than all of them.

    Who knows.

 

***

 

    It’s not business as usual but they’re pretending it is. Nobody knows that they’re missing a Paladin except the Paladins themselves. Lance doesn’t think they can keep that a secret for very long. The Empire is licking its wounds but so is Voltron—Voltron, which might not even really exist because Black is still lying on her side in her hangar, just like they had left her.

    Keith and Pidge go on long hunts, scanning vast swaths of the universe as if they can find a hint of Shiro. “Anything would do,” Pidge tells Lance, rubbing her eyes. “Just—anything.”

    That doesn’t tell Lance anything.

    “There’s nothing,” Keith says, and he isn’t quite talking to Lance—he isn’t quite talking to anyone—but it’s the closest to a conversation they’ve had in days. Lance is so startled he forgets to reply.

    “We’ll find something,” Pidge says and she sounds angry. Miffed. “He can’t have just—vanished.”

    Keith doesn’t reply. Lance hovers between them, wishing for Coran or Hunk or anyone who could be a buffer, but it’s just him. And them. Pidge sits on the floor, her armour half-off and exhaustion plain on her face. Across their armoury, Keith paces by the door, looking ready to launch back into Red and into his hunt.

    “Guys,” Lance starts.

    “Don’t,” Pidge warns.

    Keith pauses long enough to shoot them both a look that Lance can’t read and then he’s gone, like he was never really there.

    “You should talk to him,” Pidge mutters. She taps at her discarded breastplate.

    Lance considers this. “About what?” he says, his mouth dry and his tongue heavy.

    Pidge rolls her eyes. “Feelings,” she drawls. She pushes her breastplate away and stands and stretches her arms over her head. “He needs to talk to somebody.”

    “You talk to him, then,” Lance mutters and crosses his arms and maybe irritation leaks into his voice and makes his teeth ache.

    “What would I say to him?” Pidge crosses her arms.

    Lance scoffs and begins to pick up the scattered pieces of her armour while Pidge grumbles.

 

***

 

    He doesn’t know what they want to find. What they hope to find. They all saw the empty cockpit and the abandoned bayard. They all felt the tear, like a jerk under the ribs, like a tightening of something dark around their lungs, like a sudden sense of blankness behind their eyes.

    At least, Lance thinks they all felt it. They haven’t talked about it. He doesn’t bring it up. And—he doesn’t ask Keith or Pidge what they’ll do if they happen to find something. If they happen to find Shiro, spirited to an empty spot of the universe and waiting, silent and unreachable, for them to find him.

    These are, maybe, the things that keep Lance awake when he should be sleeping.

 

***

 

    It’s been almost two weeks since Keith pushed Lance against a wall and Lance allowed Keith to kiss him.

    Since they kissed.

    Lance hates himself a little for thinking of it.

 

***

 

    He’s afraid of dreaming about Shiro. He thinks he sees him, sometimes, floating and frozen, and he can’t help but imagine the worst. Can’t help but imagine that he has no idea what the worst is.

 

***

 

    Hours and days tick by. Lance and Hunk leave, come back with news and small victories. There’s something satisfying about watching bits of the Empire crumble under them. Blue is present and warm but even in the heat of it all Lance tries and fails to reach—really reach—for her.

    He flies better than he ever has. Blue is faster than ever, smoother. Lance hates it.

    He’s started taking long showers. There’s something soothing about the water beating on his head. Often, he’s alone. Often, he can trick himself into thinking that the pattering of the water against him is a little like the way Blue felt not so long ago except she has always been more like trickling, like foggy drizzle, like something cool and comforting and just a little mysterious.

    He misses her. She’s right there, under his skin, but she’s far away and god but he misses her.

    He tries to stop going to her at night. He fails. He sleeps slumped in the seat and then he wakes and readies himself for the day and inevitably tosses himself back into the seat but it’s different in what passes for daytime as they drift through space.

    Keith keeps beating on the gladiators.

 

***

 

    Lance pulls off his helmet and leans back in the seat and closes his eyes and tries to imagine that he’s breathing in fresh air. Maybe there’s a hint of cinnamon on the wind. A sea breeze. All he gets is the recycled air of Blue’s cockpit. He opens his eyes. He drums his fingers against his helmet. He thinks about just staying where he is and leaning his head back and maybe taking a nap.

    Blue is quiet and still.

    He gets up. He counts his steps. He ignores the emptiness of his head and he doesn’t try and remember what it was like, before, to be alone in his skin.

    He makes sure his footsteps are extra loud on the ramp as he descends and this takes so much attention he doesn’t immediately notice Allura waiting for him.

    “Lance,” she says when he finally raises his head and sees her.

    Lance freezes.

    Sometimes he looks at her and he thinks: yes, this is what a princess looks like. She’s tall and elegant and there’s this soft, deliberate untidiness to her hair that he loves. Allura stands with her shoulders back and her chin raised and her hands tucked behind her back. Lance thinks it would be impossible to know the grief she carries around except for the shadows in and under her eyes.

    Lance has spent a lot of time looking at Allura. Marvelling at her.

    She looks at him and something in her seems to deflate and her shoulders drop, just a bit, and something lurches in Lance so he forces his legs to carry him the rest of the way to her.

    “Hey,” he says, finally.

    Allura’s mouth twitches. She almost smiles. “Are you alright?”

    Lance considers telling her the truth but instead he says: “Yup.” He pauses. “Are you?”

    She blinks at him. Lance waits, sweating in his flight suit, in his armour, with Blue looming behind him.

    Quiet. Still.

    He feels suddenly alien.

    “I’m concerned,” Allura finally says and Lance frowns.

    “Not what I asked.”

    “Have you talked to Keith?”

    He squints. “What?” His stomach flips over and irritation and anxiety bubble under his skin.

    It must leak into his voice because Allura straightens again, her jaw tightens, like this is a version of him she’s better equipped to talk to. “Someone needs to talk to him,” she says. “He is—” She breaks off. Something loosens and sags in her, and then she catches herself. “Keith is struggling.”

    “Yeah,” Lance says after a moment. He drags it out. He clears his throat. “He’s working through it.”

    “Is he.”

    Lance clears his throat again and scratches at the back of his neck, feels the soft edge of his hair and thinks about Keith crowding close and the feel of Keith’s wrists in his hands.

    “Yup,” he manages, and then grimaces and looks at his feet. “I think.”

    He sounds lame. He feels lame.

    Allura sighs. “I tried,” she says, quiet and slow like she’s dragging it out, too. “Keith is exceptionally good at—”

    “Not talking?” Lance tries.

    “Yes,” Allura replies with a seriousness that makes Lance’s spine tremble and he remembers, loud and vivid, why he marvels at her, why he has looked at her.

    He lifts his chin and lets his arms hang jelly-like at his sides. “You want me to talk to him.”

    “Yes.”

    “He’s not going to like that.”

    Allura tilts her head and glances away, and then back. Her right hand twitches and Lance thinks, just for a moment, that she’s going to reach for him but then she brushes at a loose curl of her hair and touches her chin in a thoughtful, careful gesture he realizes he knows too well. “You’ve grown a lot, together,” she finally says. “I wouldn’t ask this if I didn’t think you could get through to him, Lance.”

    That feels like pressure.

    Like weight.

    Like a ticking time bomb knock-knock-knocking down his spine.

    “Sure,” Lance chokes out.

 

***

 

    He’s half-praying that Keith is taking a nap when he heads to the training deck.

    Lance hovers at the doors. He frowns. He rocks on the balls of his feet.

    He turns away.

 

***

 

    He tries again.

    Sort of.

    He hunches over the panel of buttons and lights and the screens he barely understands and he feels bizarre and out of place inching his nose closer to the windows. Something is ticking away at his right while Keith beats the ever-loving crap out of a gladiator below.

    Lance tries not to think what Keith would say, or do, if he saw Lance seeing him.

    Watching him.

    The exercise ends and Lance’s heart drops against his ribs and he feels slightly sick. He watches Keith peel his gloves back and he watches Keith eye his own palm with a frown and a tilt of his head. Keith’s hair is longer, now. His shoulders a little broader. He takes long strides and he holds his head high, most days, defiant and brave and timid all at once.

    Lance has spent a lot of time looking at Keith.

    He watches Keith nudge the gladiator with one foot. He watches Keith rake a hand through his hair, watches the twitchy movement of Keith’s lips as he mutters to himself.

    He thinks it wouldn’t be so hard just to talk to him. Just—walk in the room and say: “Hey.”

    Maybe: “How’re you doing?”

    Like Lance doesn’t know the answer.

    He slides away and to the ground and presses his head against the edge of the console. He presses his fingers against his ribs and takes in a long, shivering breath. When he’s sure he can stand, he darts to his feet and he runs.

 

***

 

    Lance goes to help Hunk get dinner ready and suffers Hunk’s not-so-subtle side-eye for—maybe five minutes.

    “What?”

    Hunk looks at him for a long, uncomfortable minute. “How’s Keith?”

    “No clue,” Lance grumbles and fills a bowl with food goo.

    “Allura said you were going to talk to him.”

    “I will,” Lance replies and tries to ignore the shameful heat in his cheeks and along his shoulders. “I will.”

    Hunk doesn’t say anything to that but when they leave the kitchen together he nudges Lance’s elbow until Lance looks up at him and receives the full brunt of Hunk’s smile.

    It’s hard not to smile back.

    Keith doesn’t come to dinner.

    Lance watches Pidge leave a tray outside Keith’s door. He watches Pidge clench and unclench her fists at her sides. He watches her storm away down the hall.

    He wonders if Keith is sleeping.

 

***

 

    So he goes to bed, determined to stay in bed.

    This doesn’t last. The ship hums around him, his bed tries to swallow him whole—and the entirety of the universe seems to be trying to sneak its way into the crevices of his brain. He wants Blue.

    He thinks, standing in her shadow, that she doesn’t want him.

    “Too bad,” Lance says out loud, but his voice trembles and doesn’t entirely sound like him. He sounds, a little, like his father—but he’s never heard his father sound scared, or unsteady, or shaken.

    Shaken.

    They’re all a little shaken. Lance needs Shiro to come back and set them all straight. Lance needs Blue to soothe him, from the inside layer of his soul to the freckles on his cheeks. Lance needs to forget the warmth of Keith pressed against him and Keith pressing against him. Maybe he just wants to be wanted. Maybe he just doesn’t want to be—unwanted.

    He hugs his knees to his chest and holds his breath until his vision swims.

    Blue is quiet. Shiro is gone. And Keith is unapproachable.

    Like none of it had really happened.

 

***

 

    He wakes with a pain in his neck. A pinch. A screech. He’s afraid to move at first, so he just blinks blearily at Blue’s blank viewscreens and he sinks into the pinching, screeching pain in his neck and he thinks about the long stretch of his legs and his arms hunched back against his sides.

    When he moves, he flinches.

    Lance leans over his knees and breathes: one breath; two breaths; three breaths; four breaths— He swallows. He pushes a hand through his hair and feels the flutter of it against his palm. He thinks he dreamt about Keith.

    He shivers.

    He shivers again when he realizes he’s going to have to tell Allura “sorry, Princess, but no can do.”

    How would he even explain it?

    “Back before the proverbial crap hit the proverbial fan Keith kissed me and I liked it—”

    Lance thinks about smashing his face into the floor.

    He stands and stretches his arms above his head and yawns so wide he thinks his teeth will fall out. He feels grimy and sticky and uncomfortable—again. He hasn’t slept in his bed in—a while. Surprise: time is funny in space; time is funny in a flying lion inside a flying castle with a war of Trojan scales chasing you.

    What time is it for his mom?

    Lance’s hands twitch at his sides. His shoulders tense. He pulls his jacket tighter around him and pulls his hood over his head and closes his eyes against the sudden, nauseating homesickness.

    If he was at home, he’d call home. Talk to the boy, Isabel would sigh but her smile would be wide and her teeth flashing as she looked at him over his mother’s shoulder. And his mom would say—

    But the daydream stops there.

    Crash. Clash. Screech.

    Lance opens his eyes and considers the emptiness clawing at his insides. He sets a hand over his stomach. He tries to breathe.

    And Blue gives him nothing.

    “We’ll get through this,” he says in a mumble to the floor. He turns away and traces his fingers over the edge of his seat and he tries to imagine himself: tall and long and smiling wide and eager to fly. He’s still a little of that. He’s still a little of the boy on his brothers’ shoulders, reaching for the sky.

    He’s still a little of the quivering mess Keith had left on the floor.

    Lance shoves his hands in his pockets and leaves. He isn’t running. He’s slow, like his blood is dragging him back to the ground. Like any moment he could melt into the floor and become one with Blue and then she’d finally—finally—want him again and he could finally—finally—get some sleep.

    The hangar is bright and a headache is starting behind his eyes as Blue lowers her ramp for him and Lance clomps down with his unsteady steps and that persistent, annoying pain in his neck.

    And maybe he’s so tired he doesn’t see Keith waiting for him. And maybe he’s so scared he tries to pretend he can’t see anything. And maybe he’s sure that he’s brought Keith here with his remembering and his dreaming and his quiet, painful wanting.

    “Lance,” Keith says when Lance finally comes to a stuttered stop at the edge of the ramp. He feels like he teeters, a little, like Keith’s voice weighs him down, like—something.

    Lance sucks in a breath. He looks at his feet. He hunches his shoulders and shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and he feels the worn spots of the lining with his knuckles.

    Keith shifts, a little, in front of him. Maybe he teeters a bit, too, but Lance has never thought of Keith as the teetering type.

    Lance hasn’t looked directly at him yet, but he’s seen him: slouching a little, his helmet tucked under his arm, looking bright and out of place and probably tired in his armour. It makes Lance wonder how long he’s been asleep, and where time goes in the vacuum of the universe, and if that’s just how he imagines Keith—but it’s not. He imagines and remembers Keith straight-backed and straight-faced and his arms crossed and his eyes—

    Keith sets him on fire.

    And he’s waiting, breathing quietly and shifting slightly and wavering like a fantasy in the corner of Lance’s eye. All Keith has said is Lance’s name, not whispered or shouted but spoken like a spell into the echoing brightness of the hangar and in Blue’s shadow: Lance. And that’s what Lance remembers: his name, on Keith’s breath and Keith’s lips and in the warmth of Keith’s skin—

    Yeah. Fire.

    He jerks back, taking one loud slap of a step away and hunching his shoulders impossibly higher. Lance clears his throat. He looks to the left, to the right, grinds his teeth together until the sound of it starts to drown out his memory of his own name.

    He finally looks up and Keith is there, barely an arm’s length away, looking bright and exhausted and yes, slightly slumped. Something tight makes Lance’s voice catch in his throat and he swallows it down and for just a moment they look at each other.

    Keith shuffles back a half-step. He tilts his head and it feels a little like acquiescence and Lance isn’t sure what to do with that so anger stirs in his stomach and rises through his chest and makes his shoulders burn, and burn, and burn.

    “What?” he snaps, though he isn’t sure he means to. He scowls back down at his feet because the sad tilt of Keith’s mouth and the soft edge to his lips are distracting and loud.

    “Are you okay?”

    “Peachy,” Lance snaps, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth and his ears starting to buzz. He thinks he could touch something and watch it melt and spread a little of this fire. It makes him want to run, just to feel the beat of his feet against the floor and the ka-thunk-thunk-thunk of his heart.

    Keith sighs, or maybe grunts, and Lance feels it like a sudden drop in his stomach. He shifts on his feet, swings his bent arms just a little to remind himself that his body does, in fact, work the way it should. He could run, if he wanted. He knows he could step around Keith and just—go—and Keith wouldn’t stop him.

    That chills him. He doesn’t shiver but maybe his soul does, the little bit that’s still connected to Blue.

    “You’ve been here all night,” Keith says.

    “Night’s relative,” Lance mumbles, or grumbles, or spits, and then he squints at his feet.

    “Right.”

    Lance lifts his chin before he can stop himself but he gets a moment of relief, just a bubble of warmth rather than burning spreading in his chest: Keith is looking to his left, frowning and with his free hand twitching like he isn’t sure what to do with it. Maybe he’s thinking about running, too.

    Lance takes a breath just to look at Keith, safe now with Keith’s eyes somewhere else and Keith’s attention only half directed his way. It calms him a little to watch that uncomfortable twitch of Keith’s hand, shift of his eyebrows as he frowns and frowns and frowns, the slope of his shoulders and the line of his neck. They haven’t been alone in weeks. They haven’t stood this close to each other in—weeks. It’s just Blue with them now, and she’s silent, a distinct non-presence.

    So Lance breathes in, holds it, and then—out.

    Instead of asking: how’d you know or why are you here or are you okay, Lance says: “Are you going somewhere?”

    Keith jerks a shoulder and then looks back at Lance, his lips parting, and Lance swears he can hear Keith the ghost of Keith’s voice in his ears whispering his name.

    Keith freezes, like Lance has surprised him, and—yeah, he’s definitely thinking about running, too, and that makes Lance feel a little like—

    Well.

    It makes Lance forget he has knees, or lungs, or a beating heart. He remembers sliding to the ground and feeling out of touch with his own body and just watching Keith dart away, faster than Lance had ever seen him, and it had felt so dramatic, after. Like Keith had knocked the life out of him with the kind of kiss that belonged in a movie or a cartoon or—

    Lance swallows.

    Keith twitches a full-body, obviously uncomfortable twitch. Poised to run.

    Lance half-wishes he would. Run. Or—kiss Lance, again.

    “No,” Keith says eventually.

    Lance has a moment of disappointment and then he remembers his own question and starts. He clears his throat. Tries to say: “Okay.” Fails. Tries again and manages: “Oh.”

    Oh.

    Maybe Blue would eat him.

    “We should talk,” Keith says, but it comes out slow and careful or maybe Lance’s brain has just slowed to goo and he realizes he doesn’t know what to make of that, of talking, or of having Keith within reach.

    “I’m supposed to check on you,” Lance blurts, and then visualizes slamming his head into the ground.

    “What?”

    “Because you keep beating the crap out of the gladiators.”

    Keith stares at him and Lance wonders if he’s starting to shrink.

    “Allura’s worried,” Lance manages weakly.

    “Is she.”

    They’re all worried. That’s what Lance should tell him. Lance thinks about shoving Keith’s helmet on his head backwards and running. Lance thinks about putting his hands on Keith’s shoulders and just feeling the weight of him. Lance thinks about launching himself into space and about bursting into the dining hall and announcing to the others that he and Keith have, in fact, had a conversation and they can all stop giving him meaningful looks.

    Lance licks his lips. He shifts his sweaty hands in his pockets and then pulls them out and wipes them against his pants and finally looks away from Keith and back at his feet.

    “Lance,” Keith starts after a moment.

    The heat reginites along Lance’s spine, so hot and sudden he’s sure he’s vibrating and sure he’s going to fall over. He clenches his jaw. He clenches and unclenches his fists at his sides. He hears Keith breathe: in, and out; in, and out; soft like maybe when he’s sleeping but has Lance ever seen Keith sleep?

    And then he does it again: “Lance.” A little louder. Not quite like himself.

    “Stop that,” Lance says. Not quite like himself. Loud enough that he flinches.

    “Lance—”

    “Nope!” Lance jerks straight again, waving a hand. Placatingly. Maybe he’s threatening violence. Maybe he’s floundering. He licks his lips again and feels the weight of his own tongue in his mouth and he snaps: “My name is officially banned from your mouth! Never again!”

    “What?”

    “Actually!” Lance continues, and he gets a little bit louder and he feels a little bit trapped and exposed between Keith and Blue and there’s that wonder, again, that worry that he just wants one of them to want him but Blue is still quiet and distant and Keith is just out of reach and grimacing and Lance is spiralling. His head is spinning. The words die on his lips.

    He’s so tired.

    “Lance,” Keith tries again and that makes Lance want to hit something.

    Anything.

    Grab Keith by the shoulders and kiss him and say something like: this is what you ran away from or we’re going to find Shiro or tell me everything’s going to be okay.

    “Stop,” he says. “Just—stop saying my name.”

    Keith blinks at him. His shoulders slump. Lance wants to look away again but he can’t.

    He can’t.

    So he says: “You went out looking, didn’t you?”

    He watches Keith breathe, watches Keith watch him and wonders what Keith sees.

    “Yeah,” Keith admits.

    Lance swallows. “All night?”

    And Keith smiles and that’s when Lance knows he’s doomed.

    “Night’s relative,” he says with that tired tilt to his lips that Lance thinks he’s only seen a handful of times before. It suits Keith, that little smile that’s both expected and not. A little shy, a little crooked, and very warm. Lance gets a perfect view of that smile for just a moment, and it feels like something in him finally stills, and then it falls away and Keith is frowning again and looking so much older than eighteen.

    Maybe Lance could tell him it would be okay. Maybe he could manage that, at least, for Keith: everything’s going to be okay.

    “Have you—” Keith starts and then he seems to bite down on his own words, uncertain and a little frustrated. He sighs again. He tries again: “You haven’t been sleeping.”

    Lance shrugs. Slowly, he puts his hands back into his pockets and rocks on the balls of his feet. “Says the guy who spent the night wandering deep space.” He takes a breath. Rocks some more. “How’d you know, anyways?” He wants to sound casual. He thinks that would be better than angry, or restless, or sad.

    “Red,” Keith mutters. “The other night, she—” He breaks off again and mirrors Lance’s shrug.

    She what?

    Lance doesn’t ask. He looks away. He traces the shape of one of Blue’s paws. He reaches, automatically, for her but all he gets is quiet. Not silence but—quiet. He looks back at Keith, watches Keith tilt his head, the slight shift of Keith’s hair and the slow release of tension from his mouth and all Lance gets, again, is quiet,

    He doesn’t ask, but Keith says all the same: “Look, about—the other day.”

    The other day.

    “It’s fine,” Lance says and it feels a little like the words (the lie) tears its way out of his throat and leaves a little dryness, a little pain in their wake. He wonders: did Red tell Keith this, too? Had Blue tattled on his confusion, his uncertainties, his sudden need to be wanted or just—to be anything but unwanted?

    The tension returns and Keith scowls. “It isn’t.”

    “Fine,” Lance snaps. “It’s not fine. It’s really—” He chokes and hunches and grumbles: “Whatever.”

    “It’s not whatever, either.”

    “It’s not anything!”

    At least glaring at each other is familiar. Territory Lance can navigate, even if it’s not comfortable and even if the ghost of the last time they argued (bickered) is hanging over him. He pulls his hands out of his pockets again. Tugs at his zipper. Feels the soft and wearing fabric and manages not to think of home.

    Neither of them say anything.

    Some conversation.

    Some talk.

    He’s—so tired. His neck hurts. His brain aches. He can’t seem to stop sweating.

    “I ran away,” Keith says, then, and he sounds tired, too. His hand’s twitching again. “After I— After we—” And then he stops, his mouth hanging open and his cheeks a bit pink and his shoulders starting to hunch instead of slump.

    So Lance squints at him. “Kissed?” he says.

    “Yeah,” Keith breathes. “Yeah. That.”

    “That.”

    “I ran away,” Keith snaps. “I kissed you or—or we kissed and I ran away.”

    Yeah, Lance thinks. Yeah.

“You sure did,” he mutters.

And it’s what he’s thought about more than is probably appropriate. They lost Shiro and they can’t form Voltron and everything is topsy turvy and Keith, most of all, is suffering and grieving and angry and that’s what Lance thinks about: kissing. Kissing, and not kissing. Kissing, and then watching Keith back away from with fear in his eyes and Lance on his lips, and then watching Keith run away while Lance’s own legs forgot what even standing was.

    He wants to stop thinking about it.

    He wants to lay on his back and close his eyes and think of nothing else.

    Keith looks at him, really seems to look at him. Lance, who still feels grimy and horrible and like he wants a long shower and a warm hug—but he thinks, just for a second, that that isn’t what Keith is seeing.

    “I’m sorry,” Keith says.

    “Oh.”

    “I wanted to talk to you,” Keith continues, quieter now. “And apologize. And maybe explain—something. I don’t know.” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and then back.

    Lance doesn’t have to ask why he didn’t. The lurch. The tearing. The quiet in his mind. Blue’s a looming reminder over them both, and Keith’s armour a shining alarm for what they’ve lost.

    “We’ve been busy,” Lance says.

    “Yeah.”

    “Yeah.”

    Keith eyes him and Lance doesn’t look away and he’s proud of himself for that. He’s proud of himself, even, for not running away from what he’s sure is coming next. And this time he’ll stay standing when Keith walks away. He’ll watch him go, enjoy the line of his back and the memory of his lips, and in a week or two he’ll be able to hear Keith say his name without his blood boiling and everything will be alright.

    It’ll be a relief, really.

    Keith turns away. Lance starts to breathe again.

    “I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” Keith says as he sets his helmet on one of Blue’s paws, the red-and-white of it looking out of place and tiny. Blue says and does nothing. Lance shifts on his feet, already unconsciously making to follow after Keith. “I keep the comms open thinking maybe he’ll find us before we find him or something, but most of the time all I get is Coran, or Pidge, just checking in or telling me stuff I already know.”

    “So you go out at night.”

    “So I go out at night.” Keith turns back but doesn’t meet Lance’s eyes. He’s looking to a spot just to Lance’s left, a little distracted and a little distressed.

    “We all miss him,” Lance says. He takes a step towards Keith before he thinks better of it and comes to an abrupt stop, his spine quivering. He swallows. He shoves his hands back in his pockets, where it’s safe. “We all want to find him, you know.”

    “Yeah.” Keith folds his arms. He’s quiet for a moment, and then: “He’s my family, Lance.”

    A kiss suddenly seems very small, except that his name even now burns against his ears and against his brain and Lance wants to close his eyes against it but Keith is finally looking right at him. He can’t miss that.

    “Yeah,” he says, and words suddenly seem like very little. “I get it. I mean—you know, as much as I can.” Lance clears his throat. One of the muscles in his neck twitches, urging him to turn away or look away, and he can feel the spark of his frustration and his loneliness and his fear stirring again at the back of his thoughts.

    They’re just out of reach of each other. Lance could stretch out his hand and just brush the edges of Keith’s space.

    Keith looks at him, and looks at him, and looks at him. And space stretches, and stretches, and stretches around them and between them.

    “You do and you don’t,” Keith says, almost sighs, and drops his arms to his sides.

    Lance wonders: what does that mean?

    “What does that mean?” he lets himself say. His mouth twists.

    “I don’t know,” Keith mutters. “Maybe nothing. Except that we kissed and then Shiro vanished and I haven’t—had a clue what I should do.”

    “Okay,” Lance says, and then Keith takes a step back towards him and it seems to happen so slowly but panic still roars up Lance’s spine and makes his cheeks and his ears and his neck burn. “Keith—”

    “It’s not a good time,” Keith says.

    If Lance reached out he could touch the line of Keith’s jaw. He could, maybe, brush Keith’s hair from his forehead or settle his hands on Keith’s shoulders and lean into him. But he holds his breath and Keith looks at him and it feels, a little, like a challenge but it also feels, a little like—

    “Yeah,” Lance breathes and feels his chest expand. “Bad timing. Bad—time. That’s okay.”

    “Yeah?”

    He nods.

    Keith looks a little disappointed, for a moment, but that flickers away before Lance can really understand what it means and then Keith is smiling that small, tilted smile and the hangar shifts under Lance’s feet.

    “It’s not okay,” Keith insists, and he finally—finally—sounds like himself and that makes Lance’s bones melt. He waits for his body to topple over but Keith comes just a little bit closer and his armour is so bright— “It’s not a good time.”

    Lance licks his lips. “Yeah.”

    And there’s that Keith-brand sigh again, and it’s almost a groan or a grunt or something equally frustrated and normal and strange against the hammering of Lance’s heart in his chest.

    He wants Keith to kiss him again.

    It’s bad timing but he wants Keith to kiss him again.

    And like Keith can hear him, or like he maybe said it out loud or shouted it in Keith’s face, Keith says: “Lance.”

    Lance wants to say something to that. He’d like to tear his name from Keith’s memory so he never has to go through this again—but before he can remember how language works, Keith reaches up and pushes a hand through Lance’s hair and drags his fingers once against the back of Lance’s head and Lance thinks that this would be better if Keith wasn’t in his armour, if they weren’t in the middle of space, if they were in a park or at the beach or anywhere else—it’s not a good time, it’s not a good time, it’s not a good time—

    “Lance,” Keith says, firm and quick. “I’m going to kiss you again.”

    “Good,” Lance replies, more earnestly than he would have liked but Keith doesn’t seem to mind.

    And when he pulls Lance in and Lance feels himself waver and tilt towards Keith, and when Keith kisses him carefully and with a warmth that is so, so different than their hurried kisses all those days ago—it’s perfect.

    Not a crash.

    It’s soft and careful. Lance thinks of starlight on water and he thinks of the hunch of Keith’s shoulders when he’s annoyed and he thinks that maybe Keith’s been thinking about him, too. Even just a little.

    Keith pulls back but not away and Lance is sure that if he fell, in this moment, Keith would catch him.

    He swallows.

    “I think I like you,” Keith says and Lance can feel the warmth of his voice on his lips and his chin.

    “You think?” he tries to ask but it comes out as a creaking whisper.

    Keith blinks, and then there’s a tense shift of his jaw that Lance recognizes as that special Keith-brand of determination: the Keith before he launches himself at an opponent, or the Keith when they’re bickering, or the Keith when the rest of them are uncertain or afraid.

    And Keith clarifies: “I know.”

    “Oh,” Lance breathes and his voice dies in his throat just as Keith pulls him in for another kiss and sets every inch of him on fire.

    It’s like he’s forgotten how to be a person, or how to kiss another person. He feels the warmth of Keith’s hand in his hair and he feels Keith’s other arm wind tight around him and he feels the way Keith presses against him and he feels the tingling of his skin like his nerves are laughing as they burn and chanting over and over: perfect. He hates Keith’s flight suit under his hands and he loves the way their mouths slot together and how easily Keith holds him steady.

    He’s scared of waking up. Dropping back to reality and falling out of his seat in Blue’s cockpit and listening to his heart hammer and feeling the dread that will come with realizing how gone he is.

    Gone: he gets it, now. Gone, like he’s nothing but the little noises that come from his throat, and nothing but the drag of his fingers against Keith’s arms.

    They part long enough for Keith to whisper his name one more time. Lance shivers until Keith kisses him again.

 

***

 

    One sleepless night, Lance had imagined what he would do if they were at home. If they weren’t them and if there wasn’t a war waiting—just waiting—to swallow them all whole.

    In that daydream, Lance is frank and casual. He’d admit he doesn’t hate Keith’s hair (but not that he wants to tangle his fingers in it). He’d say something like: “Let’s just give it a try.”

    And Keith would cross his arms and tilt his head but he’d eventually say: “Yeah.”

    And, maybe, eventually, after a handful of great dates and enough kisses to keep Lance floating through the week, they’d take each other’s hands and Lance would have a handsome and moody boyfriend.

    It’d be slow and sweet and normal.

 

***

 

    There’s no interruption this time.

    Time passes, somehow. Keith keeps Lance upright, lets Lance lean heavily against him. Blue watches over them. Keith’s hand slides from Lance’s hair to his neck, his shoulder. They kiss until Lance is light-headed and Keith is breathing is quiet, shallow puffs and their noses brush and Lance licks his lips and tastes Keith.

    Or maybe that’s in his head.

    He closes his eyes against the buzz in his ears.

    “Don’t run away,” he mumbles when he’s sure he knows how words work again.

    Keith squeezes his shoulder. Lance teeters, just a little more, and they lean their foreheads together. Lance is sure he’s sweaty and sticky but it doesn’t seem to matter, then.

    “I’m not,” Keith replies softly.

    “Good.”

    “Good.”

    Lance opens his eyes, slow and hesitant, and sees Keith looking right back at him, too close and entrancing.

    He swallows.

    “Are you okay?” Keith asks.

    Lance blinks. He thinks about laughing. He manages not to. “Am _I_ okay?”

    Keith grunts.

    Lance rolls his eyes and there’s a retort or a reprimand on the tip of his tongue (Lance isn’t training until his hands hurt and avoiding everyone at mealtimes and trekking out into deep space in the middle of what passes for night)—and then his stomach growls.

    They freeze.

    Lance’s cheeks heat.

    “Uh,” he says.

    Keith pulls back, his hands and his warmth sliding away and leaving Lance suddenly and painfully cold. Lance remembers to let go a moment later and peels his hands from Keith’s arms.

    They look at each other, and then away.

    “‘s probably breakfast already,” Keith mumbles.

    Lance nods, except he has no idea what time it is. “Yeah,” he says lamely.

    Keith shifts on his feet. “I should go—change.”

    “Yeah.”

    They don’t move.

    “I’ll see you later,” Keith says eventually and Lance looks up. Keith twitches. He scratches the side of his neck and eyes Lance. “Yeah?”

    And Lance nods again, sure and firm this time. “Yeah.”

    There’s another moment of staring and Lance tucks his hands higher up his sleeves to keep from reaching for Keith and then Keith takes a step back. And another. And then snatches up his helmet and turns away, his steps loud and quick.

    Something snaps in Lance’s chest, spreading a prickling heat that’s nothing like Keith’s kisses or his name on Keith’s lips, and he calls: “Keith.”

    Keith stop and turns back, looking steady and bright in his armour.

    Lance presses his fingers into his palms. “What are we going to do?”

    A breath, and then Keith’s shoulders slump. “No clue,” he says, his voice echoing slightly.

    Lance watches him go until the doors zip shut behind Keith. He lets out a breath. He clenches and unclenches his fists.

    He wants to throw back his head and laugh and relish in the memory of unrushed and uninterrupted kisses.

    He wants to crawl back into Blue and hide.

    He pulls his hood over his head and shoves his hands in his pockets and he starts across the hangar, imagining Keith’s footprints as he goes, and then stops. He turns back to look at Blue, quiet and huge, and he feels nothing.

    He’s alone.

 

***

 

    He knows they don’t have the time or the space for slow and sweet and normal.

    He still wants—

  


   

   

   

   

   


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